The Belgrade-based EU Info Center said on Monday that more than half the population of Serbia wants the country to become a member of the European Union.
It quoted the results of a poll conducted by the Ninamedia agency for the EU Delegation in Serbia which showed that 52.3 percent of those surveyed want Serbia to join the Union while 32.6 percent are opposed. Another 8.4 percent said they would abstain from any vote on membership, 6.2 percent said they don’t know and 0.5 percent refused to answer.
According to the Ninamedia poll, more than two-thirds of the population, ages 18 to 29, want the country to join the EU.
More than 40 percent of the polled said they didn’t know that the EU is Serbia’s biggest donor but most of them know that the Union is Serbia’s most important trade and investment partner, taking precedence over China, Russia, the US and Turkey.
The press release quoted EU Delegation chief Sem Fabrizi who said the poll results were very encouraging.
In regard to the EU member states – 17.9 percent of respondents think that Greece is Serbia’s best friend, 10.5 percent state France, 8.6 percent Germany, and 7.6 percent Hungary. However, the largest number of respondents, 36.9 percent, did not give an answer to this question.
On the other hand, 17.8 percent of surveyed people think that Germany is the most hostile EU country, followed by Croatia 16.4 percent. 44.5 percent did not give an answer to this question.
According to the poll results, Serbia has the best relations with China and China was also the first on the list of countries that helped Serbia the most during the coronavirus pandemic.
17% of the respondents stated that the EU helped Serbia the most during the pandemic, which puts the Union in second place, Russia is fifth, and the United States is tenth.
Young people under the age of 30 and older than 60 believe that Russia’s is Serbia’s best friend. The relationship between Serbia and Russia is rated the highest by 36.2 percent of the poll participants.
Thus, the average assessment of the relations between Serbia and Russia is 4.03. Higher grades are given by women, respondents younger than 30 and older than 60, of the basic level of education, from central Serbia and suburban settlements.
However, compared to previous polls, that number is declining, according to the Institute for European Studies.
The relations between Serbia and the United States, compared to other countries, received the lowest score – 2.58. The poll results also show that women and people under the age of 30 give higher grades to the Serbia-U.S. relations.
However, 39 percent of the poll participants believe that “the United States is the enemy of Serbia”, and these are mostly men. A total of 23 percent of respondents, however, believe the opposite, and 38 percent did not answer this question.
Also, 44% of the surveyed citizens of Serbia believe that if the current US President, Joe Biden, would visit Serbia that would improve the relations between the two countries.
(Danas, 26.07.2021)
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